


Can't Unsee

by Lassenby



Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: M/M, established stancest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-03
Updated: 2018-03-03
Packaged: 2019-03-26 06:10:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,204
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13851723
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lassenby/pseuds/Lassenby
Summary: Dipper and Mabel find out something they could have lived without knowing, and it brings up some stuff.





	Can't Unsee

**Author's Note:**

> dedicated to my friend, W~! ♥ ♥

If Dipper doubted what he’d seen, the sound was unmistakable- an extra loud smack in the early morning quiet. That, in conjunction with Ford’s snapped, ‘Stanley!’ and Stan’s chuckle, all came together to paint a vivid picture.

Dipper looked an urgent question at his sister. Mabel had been sinking into the couch, half asleep and grazing out of a box of sugary cereal, but now she was sitting up straight and looking back at Dipper with a confused frown.

“I gotta take a leak,” Stan announced. “Don’t let Waddles on my chair.”

He grunted as he stood up out of his chair. As soon as he left the room, Dipper leaped up from the floor and went to sit next to his sister. They ignored Waddles clambering into Stan’s seat.

“Did you see that?” Dipper hissed.

“I saw...something.” Mabel shook her head. “Actually, I don't think so.”

“You did,” Dipper insisted. “Grunkle Stan...he, uh. He slapped Grunkle Ford.”

“On the butt,” Mabel confirmed.

“So I didn’t imagine it! What the heck was that about?”

“Maybe it’s not that weird. Dont guys do that in sports? After a game they slap each other’s butts?”

“They weren’t playing any sports, though. Grunkle Ford said he was going to make coffee, and Stan called him ‘Toots’, and then…the incident occured.”

Mabel snorted.

“It’s not funny!” Dipper said, aghast.

“It's kind of funny,” Mabel said. “Anyway, I bet Stan was just joking around.”

“Yeah. That’s got to be it.” Dipper wanted to believe that, but his face was still pinched with worry. “But just in case…”

“Spy on the Grunks?”

“Spy on the Grunks,” Dipper agreed.

They sealed it with a fistbump, then wriggled off the couch, careful to elicit the least squawking of old springs. Pad-footed in socks, they crept down the hall to the kitchen doorway. Dipper reached it first and signaled for Mabel to stop. They both stood with their backs pressed against the wall, listening intently.

“Bacon, again? So much grease in your diet isn't healthy at your age,” Ford’s voice warned, over the ambient sizzle-pop of grease. “Or any age.”

“It’s a special occasion,” Stan said.

“Oh?”

“The kids are here,” Stan explained.

“The children have been here for a week already. If you keep using them as an excuse to neglect your health, you might not be around to see them off at the end of the summer.”

“Keep nagging, I’ll start to think you wanna keep me around or something.”

“And another thing-”

“Of course there’s another thing,” Stan grumbled.

“What were you thinking, behaving like that in front of the children?”

Dipper and Mabel exchanged wide-eyed looks.

Stan laughed. “You’re worried about that? Those kids are always staring at their phones. If it happened more than six inches from their noses, they didn’t see nothing.”

“You're underestimating them.”

“And you’re annoying. I’m drowning you out now.”

The radio clicked on, and soft swing music began to play.

“Stanley-”

The music grew louder.

In spite of themselves, Dipper and Mabel snickered behind their hands. Mabel’s eyes widened with a sudden thought. Dipper watched her, confused, as she rummaged around in her pajama pockets, spilling tissues, candy wrappers and glitter onto the floor.

At last, she produced a compact mirror. She flicked it open and held it angled so they could see into the kitchen, but their grunkles couldn’t see them.

Dipper smiled and gave her a thumbs up.

Their small porthole into the kitchen revealed exactly the scene they might have guessed: Stan at the stove, poking a bacon around a pan and tapping one slippered foot to the music. Ford sat at the table, flicking through articles on his tablet.

Stan glanced at Ford over his shoulder.

“You’re as bad as the kids with that thing,” he said. “Didn’t you say you’d make the coffee?”

Ford sighed, set down his tablet and scooted his chair back from the table. He got out two mugs and set them down on the counter with a clink. As he poured the coffee, Stan began to hum along to the radio.

“I love this tune,” Stan said. “It's the kind of song you can't stand around to.”

He held a hand out to Ford, who stared as if Stan were holding a dead rat.

“You can’t be serious, Stanley.”

“Nothing serious,” Stan confirmed. “Just a dance.”

Ford shook his head. “I don’t think so. My dancing days are long behind me.”

Stan grabbed Ford's hand anyway. “What dancing days? If I'm remembering high school right, you were more the ‘stand awkwardly in the corner’ type.”

Frowning, Ford allowed Stan to pull him away from the coffee and lead him in a few steps across the kitchen.

“You don’t know what I’ve been doing these past thirty years,” Ford reminded. “I could have learned.”

“Sure,” Stan said mildly.

But after a couple more steps, Ford’s shuffling feet tripped over Stan’s, and they stumbled. Stan’s back thumped against the fridge and Ford staggered into him. Their foreheads whacked together with an auditory crack.

Groaning, Stan rubbed his head. “Now I see why you didn’t want to dance. You suck.”

Ford flicked him in the sore spot.

“Ow! If you care about my health so much, how come you're trying to kill me?”

“You’re an ass,” Ford said, but fondly, and chuckled.

What he did next, the kids only saw for a second. The compact mirror hit the ground with a clatter. Stan and Ford might have heard, but the younger Pines wouldn't know; they had already hurried down the hallway and trampled upstairs in a muffled thunder of sock-feet.

Once they were alone, they burst into horrified noises.

“Ew, ew, ew, ew, ew!” Mabel shouted, pulling on her hair.

“That didn’t just happen,” Dipper said.

“But it did!”

“Grunkle Ford would never- with his own brother-...I’m going to be sick.” Dipper did look a little pale. He dropped onto his bed.

“Maybe it was just a sibling kiss,” Mabel said, not sounding convinced.

“On the lips?” Dipper made an ‘urp’ sound and covered his mouth. “I can’t get it out of my head.”

Mabel paced in a circle. “Okay, okay, so that happened, and we saw it. We can’t unsee it.” She stopped. “Well…”

“No memory gun,” Dipper said. “Tempting as it is. It’s too dangerous.”

Mabel flopped on her bed and muffled a scream into a pillow.

“When we decided to spy on them, I didn’t really think…” Dipper covered his face. “How could they be that way, together? It’s disgusting.”

“They were apart for a long time, and Grunkle Stan really missed his brother. Maybe they had, like, too much love saved up. Or something.”

“That doesn't make any sense.”

“Well, I don’t know! It’s gross, but it could be worse.”

“Worse how?”

“What about the time Stan tried to smooch that spider lady? She was worse. She tried to eat him.”

“Honestly? Right now, I kind of wish she’d done it.”

Mable leaped up off her bed. “What the heck are you saying, Dipper? They’re still our Grunkles! No matter where they kiss each other.”

“Oh god, Mable, please don’t say it like that.” Dipper doubled over, clutching his stomach as a wave of nausea rolled over him.

“Is it really that bad? We should want them to be happy, no matter what. They’re our family.”

“That’s the problem! Families aren’t supposed to do that. It’s like if you and I…” Dipper trailed off, shaking his head. He couldn’t follow that thought to completion. “I don’t know how I can look at them, now. I can’t stop thinking about it.”

“But you still love them, right?” Mable asked.

Dipper should have recognized the hurt deer look in her eyes. But he was too consumed by thought, distracted by the images replaying over and over in his mind. Stan and Ford! Stan was a gross old man, not to mention morally bankrupt, so Dipper might have expected something like this from him.

But Ford? His brilliant, rational great-uncle Ford? It was impossible.

With so much on his mind, he didn’t answer right away. Didn’t answer at all, because after a few seconds of silence ticked by, Mabel turned and tore off out of the attic. Dipper saw the tears spring to her eyes an instant before she ran, but it was too late.

“Mabel!” he called after her.

She didn’t stop. Dipper jumped up off his bed, but by the time he reached the attic doorway, he heard the front door slam from downstairs. He turned back and rushed to look out the window.

He reached the window just in time to see Mabel disappear into the trees, still in her pajamas and socks.

 

Ten minutes later, Dipper had dressed and snuck out of the house, careful to avoid his great-uncles. He wandered around the woods with Mable's shoes held in one hand, one of her sweaters draped over his arm.

It was a drizzly, misty morning. Tendrils of fog crept along the ground, curling around tree trunks and licking his ankles. The forest echoed with birdsong and droplets plunking from the pine boughs. The towering trees made the forest cathedral-like, enormous and echoey, so Dipper easily heard Gideon’s nasally voice before he found him.

“Don’t you worry, darlin’. Just let it all out.”

“I just can’t believe him sometimes,” Mabel’s voice answered, softer and sniffly.

Thier backs were turned to Dipper, so he saw them first. Gideon and Mabel sat side by side on a fallen log, her head resting on his shoulder, his arm wrapped around his back.

Dipper couldn’t believe his eyes. “Uh. Hey?”

Gideon glared back at him with a look of such intense fury that Dipper almost laughed in spite of himself. “You've got a lot of nerve,” he snapped.

“I brought your shoes,” Dipper said to Mabel, ignoring Gideon. “Your socks must be soaked, huh?”

Mable didn’t turn to look at him.

“I was acting like a jerk,” Dipper went on. “I just...it doesn’t matter. There’s no good excuse. Can we just talk, please?”

“She doesn’t wanna talk to you,”Gideon snapped. “Why don’t you just go-”

“Shut up, Gideon,” Mabel said.

“Huh?” Gideon squeaked.

“Sorry. I know you’re trying to look out for me, and that’s really sweet, but just...Shut up, okay?”

“Well. If that’s what you want,” Gideon said. He sounded bemused, but not angry. At least not at her. “I guess I’ll be going. But if he makes you cry again, I can’t make any promises about what I’ll do.”

Dipper got the second biggest surprise of her life to see Mabel wrap her arms around Gideon in a tight hug.

“I'll be fine. But thanks,” she sniffled into his shoulder.

“What are friends for?” Gideon smiled fondly after Mabel as she stood up. When she turned toward Dipper and couldn’t see Gideon anymore, he pointed with two fingers, first at his own eyes, then at Dipper. The message was clear. I’m watching you.

Gideon could watch all he wanted. Dipper had come here to apologize, not to hurt his sister more.

Mabel took her shoes and put them on, then wriggled into her sweater. “I don’t want to go back to the Shack yet,” she said.

Dipper couldn’t agree more. “We could walk?”

They left Gideon in the clearing. Dipper half expected him to follow them, but he started the other way, just like he’d promised.

“So...you and Gideon,” Dipper said.

“He helped save me from the bubble. You’re the one who told me, remember?”

“I saved you, too,” Dipper reminded.

Mabel snorted. “Jealous? I can have more than one friend.”

“He’s just a friend, then?”

“He’s not my boyfriend, if that’s what you’re thinking.” Mabel wrinkled her nose. “Geez. Why would you jump to that conclusion?”

“The way he was acting, it kind of seemed like-”

“He’s gay,” Mabel interrupted.

“...Oh.”

“Yeah. He figured it out a few months ago, I guess.” Mabel smiled. “I’m glad. We get along better when he doesn't have a creepy, obsessive crush on me. And we can talk about boys now.”

“I’d say maybe he’s just faking it to lure you in again, but…” Dipper shrugged. “I can see it.”

“He’s really, really gay,” Mabel confirmed. “And kind of an awesome friend? I know, it’s weird. But we had a lot of fun when we first hung out. I forgot how much I missed that.”

They walked in silence for a while, listening to the birds sing in the early morning stillness.

“I’m sorry,” Dipper said. “About how I acted earlier. Of course I still love them. They’re our grunkles!”

“You don’t have to apologize. You were freaked out, you needed time to deal with it. I guess I just took it personally.”

“Took it personally?” Dipper frowned. “Oh, you mean like; if I don’t have unconditional love for them, then maybe I don’t have unconditional love for you?”

Mabel shrugged.

Dipper grabbed her hand. They never held hands anymore- they were technically teenagers, too old for that- but if there was ever an exception, this was it. Mabel cast a surprised glance at him.

They kept walking, arms swinging between them like they were little kids again.

“It’s not true, you know. Nothing could make me stop loving you,” Dipper said.

Tears welled in Mabel's eyes, and she wiped them with her long sleeve. “Stupid teenage hormones!” she said with a sniffle. “I can’t stop crying.”

“I sort of feel like crying, too,” Dipper admitted.

“You’d really love me no matter what? Even if I did something horrible, like Grunkle Stan?”

“Please don’t do Grunkle Stan. It’s bad enough that Ford is doing him.” Dipper snorted, then groaned. “Oh god. I made myself sick.”

Mabel was weirdly quiet. When Dipper looked over at her, he saw her staring into the middle distance, brow furrowed in thought.

“Mabel?”

“Not him.” She carefully didn’t look at Dipper. “But if I felt like that, for someone I shouldn’t...would you…” She laughed shakily. “Forget it! It doesn’t even matter, because I don’t feel that way anymore. It was a phase.”

“You liked someone you shouldn’t?” Dipper repeated, perplexed. “Who was it?”

He knew the answer to his question immediately by the look on her face. She looked terrified. Understanding, he expected to be horrified, the way he’d felt seeing the reflection of his Grunkles kissing in the kitchen. But horror didn’t come.

“It was after last summer,” Mabel said quietly. “We’d almost died. It was practically the end of the world. I was so scared of losing you, and then I caused everything, and you saved me anyway, and, and-”

“Breathe.” Dipper squeezed her hand.

Mable drew in a deep, wet breath. “And you were my hero! I loved you so much, and we always had so much fun together. I guess I just got confused.” Her cheeks flushed deep pink. “I thought I had a crush on you.”

That’s what Dipper had expected, but hearing it still caused a painful shock in his chest. Any possible words got tangled up in his throat.

“You hate me now,” she accused.

“No! I’d never hate you.” And he meant it. “You don’t, uh...feel that way, anymore?”

Mabel shook her head. “It was silly. Honestly, it’s probably because you’d just met Julie and started hanging out with her all the time, and then you started dating. I was jealous. And confused.”

“Yeah,” Dipper rubbed the back of his neck with his free hand. “I should have spent more time with you. That wasn’t my finest moment.”

“You were kind of obsessed with her,” Mabel agreed. “Stalker-ish, even.”

“Takes one to know one.”

“I’m not a stalker; I’m boy crazy. Learn the difference.”

“I get what you mean, I think. Not about the crush. But sometimes, when you’re all ga-ga over a guy, it makes me jealous. I like being your favorite person.”

“You’re always my favorite person.” Mabel said, then laughed.

“What’s so funny?"

“All of this! It’s been this huge secret, like it was so important. I thought it would change everything if anyone knew. Now it just seems ridiculous.”

Dipper knew it was dumb, but he couldn’t help but feel wounded. “I don’t know if ‘ridiculous’ is the right word.”

“I can’t believe I used to daydream about kissing you. Like, all the time.” Mabel’s nose wrinkled.

“You think it would be bad?”

“Probably. I don’t know? I’m not saying you seem like a bad kisser or anything. I didn't mean it that way.”

“No, yeah. I don’t even know why I said that.” Dipper could barely hear his own nervous chuckle over the pounding of his heartbeat.

They’d stopped walking. Dipper wasn’t sure when they had stopped, but now they stood motionless in the dripping shade of a huge, shaggy redwood, still holding hands.

“We could try,” Mabel said.

Dipper swallowed. “Kissing?”

“Just kidding. Unless you want to, then I meant it. But you obviously don’t want to do that, so I was just messing with you!” Mabel’s high, almost hysterical laugh cut off abruptly as Dipper took her other hand. She stared at him with an expression that he imagined must be mirrored in his face, on nearly the same features; wide-eyed, scared but wondering.

It was hard to say who leaned in first. The moment seemed to last forever, quivering with goosebumpy anticipation.

They bumped noses painfully. Tilted the same way and bumped again, through laughing apologies. Then, at last, their lips met.

There was no spark. No revulsion, either, Dipper noted, but it felt...like Mabel had said. Silly. Like kissing a stuffed animal or a mirror.

Mable must have thought so too, because she snorted and honked a laugh against his lips. The hilarity of the situation was infectious. It quickly passed to Dipper, and soon they were both wheezing with laughter, clutching each other for support while tears streamed down their faces.

“How was that?” Dipper asked when he could breathe again. “About how you used to imagine it?”

“Not exactly.” Mable wiped her eyes, still grinning hugely. “Oh, my god, why did we think that would be a good idea?”

“I don’t know! It just seemed like the thing to do at the time.”

“Should we go home now? We have to save Grunkle Stan from all that bacon.” Mabel said.

Dipper’s stomach growled in agreement.

Mabel rested her head on Dipper’s shoulder and closed her eyes. “Thank you.”

“For driving you into the woods in tears? Or for the worst kiss ever?”

“It was hardly the worst kiss,” Mabel said. “Maybe the funniest. No, I mean, thanks for being my favorite person. And for being so nice, when I told you that thing I told you.”

“No problem.” It felt kind of lame, so he added, “You’re my favorite person, too.”

“Will you please try to forgive Grunkle Stan and Ford? For me?”

“Of course I'm gonna forgive them. Even if it’s gross, it’s not like they’re doing it to hurt us.”

“Good.”

“But if I accidentally see them smashing their old man faces together again, I am going to puke.”

“That’s fair.”


End file.
